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Book Review: Siege and Storm

SIEGE AND STORM by Leigh Bardugo
3 Stars
Verdict: Starting to lose interest.
#1 Shadow and Bone
#2 Rise and Rising


As much as I wanted to love this series, this felt like a second book to me in every way. Battles are lost, relationships are sunk and mended, but none of the events were particularly surprising. I've read other reviews and I'm just not on the same page.

I'm at a slight loss already as I hear the main appeal of this book is the Darkling, and to me he's too vague and absent to grab my attention. Learning more about his past would have been intriguing, but in this book we mainly see how power affects Alina and Mal's relationship.

It opens fast as Alina and Mal face the Darkling once more, but after that the pace dwindles. The author has a beautiful way with words, but spends them on the wrong things. There's so much time inside Alina's head and teaching us about the world, and not enough actually happening in the now.

As the book goes on, Alina transforms into an unlikable character. She whines, makes terrible decisions, gets jealous, insecure, and power hungry. It's the classic decent of a sequel protagonist.

Mal's development isn't positive either. I got the feeling he hated himself most of the time, and by the end of the book I stopped liking him entirely.

On the other hand, Nikolai seemed like a very interesting character. He's charming, with secrets and wit, and he added more to the plot and kept me reading. I hope to see more of him in the future.

In general, I would have preferred less broken romance and more plot. I can't see book three knocking my socks off, but I'd still like to complete the series. I love the folk-tale quality to it and the concept of the amplifies, and I'd like to see how it all wraps up.

Source: Bought it myself!

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